Imagine: fresh, delicious mother's milk, straight from the udder! That's the plan from a team of Argentinian scientists, who have created the world's first transgenic cow—that's a cloned cow pumped full of human genes, folks—that will allow the animal to produce what is essentially human milk.
The cow, named Rosita ISA, was born last month weighing almost 100 lbs, which is twice the normal weight of Jersey milk cows. She was born with human genes—the proteins lactoferrin and lysozyme, to be exact— which will allow her to produce "highly nutritious" human-esque milk. Last month, Chinese scientists set to work on a similar project, which begs the question: why are we so obsessed with cloning human milk?
Human breast milk artist Miriam Simun told us there's already a black market for human breast milk, which many women overproduce during nursing: "It's huge. There are websites that are similar to Craigslist...There are all sorts of people who use it." So why the rush on the cloned stuff? Does it taste better? Sadly, we'll have to wait several years to find out: (not-so) little Rosita needs time to grow, and the milk likely won't be commercialized for several years. There has been no word yet on whether or not she'll also make chocolate milk.
[via Grub Street]
